Price Net £4.95: Re-Pricing The Silmarillion, 1977–1992

 

When The Silmarillion was first published in September 1977, dustjackets—on hardback copies intended for UK distribution and sale—carried a printed price of ‘£4.95’. A few years after publication GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN (GA&U) decided to increase the (‘net’) price of The Silmarillion in hardback. Stock, printed in 1977, with dustjackets still priced at £4.95, would need to be changed to reflect this. GA&U chose to do this, as they did with many other editions, by amending the printed price(s) on dustjackets using price labels (stickers); simple, inexpensive, and presumably still NET BOOK AGREEMENT compliant. At various points, throughout the 1980s, stock of The Silmarillion—still held by GA&U (and later UNWIN HYMAN)—would be re-priced in this manner.

 

The following list aims to document known price changes made to The Silmarillion in hardback from publication through to 1992. All re-pricing examples given below are to the dustjackets of Clowes Second Impression and University Press Fourth Impression copies only. Assigned label variant codes are for ease of cross-referencing in this write-up only.

 

THE SILMARILLION: A PRELIMINARY CHECKLIST OF DUSTJACKET RE-PRICING 1977–1992

 

£4.95 | PRINTED | GA&U

 

Original printed price

Printed price, front flap. No variation seen. Unpriced dustjacket state not covered here. [Shown on dustjackets of Billing First State and Clowes Second Impression variants (S.003, S.014)].

 

NOTE: The Bookseller gives publication price to the trade in August 1977 as £4.95¹; earlier references to planned price undoubtedly exist. Publication 15th September 1977; dustjackets carry £4.95 printed price. Tolkien's World catalogue², page headed ‘This year's Christmas range...’, still has price as £4.95 in 1978. Likely remained at £4.95 for at least the remainder of 1978 (see below).

 

1. THE BOOKSELLER | THE ORGAN OF THE BOOK TRADE. Autumn Export Number. No. 3737, (Saturday) 6 August 1977, p. 565. Hb Silm. price £4.95.

2. TOLKIEN'S WORLD | MAKE A NEW DISCOVERY [Cover title]. Catalogue/stocklist. GA&U, n.d. [c. Autumn 1978]. Hb Silm. price £4.95.

 

£5.95 | LABEL | GA&U

 

Variant 595.1 (3 examples)

VARIANT 595.1: Price label, front flap (covering printed price). Publisher (full), £5.95, white. No priority determined. [Shown on dustjackets of University Press Fourth Impression variants (S.154, S.159, S.211)].

 

Variant 595.2

VARIANT 595.2: Price label, front flap (covering printed price). Publisher (abbrev.), £5.95, white. No priority determined. [Shown on dustjacket of Clowes Second Impression variant (S.090)].

 

Variant 595.3

 

VARIANT 595.3: Price label, front flap (covering printed price). Publisher (abbrev.), £5[.]95, cream. No priority determined. [Shown on dustjacket of Clowes Second Impression variant (S.040)].

 

Variant 595.4

 

VARIANT 595.4: Price label, front flap. Plain (no publisher), £5.95, white. No priority determined; origin unclear. Present here with Blue.1 label variant (see below). Relationship of two labels unclear; affixation probably contemporaneous. [Shown on dustjacket of Clowes Second Impression variant (S.146)].

NOTE: August 1980 catalogue¹ gives price as £5.95, reflecting first price increase since publication. Acquisition and accession dates (December and September 1980 respectively) in two copies show that VARIANT 595.1 was in use by September 1980; perhaps indicative of priority. Still catalogued² as £5.95 in October 1982. Timing of next increase not clear; presumably 1983 at the earliest. GA&U merged with BELL & HYMAN in July 1986 to form UNWIN HYMAN (UH)³; terminus ante quem for continued use of GA&U stationary. 

 

1. 1980 IS THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST COMPLETE PUBLICATION OF J.R.R. TOLKIEN'S THE LORD OF THE RINGS. [Cover title]. Catalogue/stocklist. GA&U, n.d. [16 August 1980]. Hb Silm. price £5.95.

2. TOLKIEN BOOKS MAKE GREAT GIFTS [Cover title]. Catalogue/stocklist. GA&U, n.d. [23 October 1982]. Hb Silm. price £5.95.

3. REMEMBRANCER p. 275.

 

Blue | LABEL | GA&U

 

Variant Blue.1 (3 examples)

VARIANT Blue.1: Price label, front flap (covering printed price). Publisher (abbrev.), no price, blue. No variation seen. [Shown on dustjackets of Clowes Second Impression variants (S.039, S.176, S.146)].

 

NOTE: Nominal ‘price label’; function to control pricing information (concealment). Period of use by GA&U not clear. Same label noted on dustjacket of 1975 impression of The Adventures of Tom Bombadil. Dating information also suggested by VARIANT 595.4 combination. One copy has school prize bookplate dated July 1985. Therefore in use (at least) between 1975–1985. Chronological positioning of blue label use in present checklist (between £5.95 and £8.95 re-pricing) speculative.

 

£8.95 | LABEL | GA&U

 

Variant 895.1

 

VARIANT 895.1: Price label, front flap (printed price clipped). Publisher (abbrev.), £8.95, cream. No priority determined. [Shown on dustjacket of Clowes Second Impression variant (S.160)]. 

 

Variant 895.2

 

VARIANT 895.2: Price label, front flap (printed price clipped). Publisher (abbrev.), £8.95, cream. No priority determined. [Shown on dustjacket of Clowes Second Impression variant (S.115)].

 

NOTE: July 1986 formation of UH provides terminus ante quem; could argue for use of some GA&U material beyond this date, but hardly inexpensive price labels (unless already affixed).

 

£11.95 | LABEL | UNWIN HYMAN

 

Variant 1195.1

 

VARIANT 1195.1: Price label, front flap (printed price clipped). Publisher (full), £11.95, white. No priority determined. [Shown on dustjacket of Clowes Second Impression variant (S.013)]. 

 

Variant 1195.2

 

VARIANT 1195.2: Price label, front flap (printed price clipped). Plain (no publisher), £11.95, white. No priority determined; origin unclear. [Shown on dustjacket of Clowes Second Impression variant (S.191)].

 

NOTE: First re-pricing attributable to UH; July 1986 company formation provides terminus post quem for use of new UH stationary. Price in place by July 1987; VARIANT 1195.2 is ex-library copy with July 1987 accession date. UH catalogue¹ from 1989 still has price as £11.95; likely remained at this price for remainder of 1989.

 

1. J.R.R. TOLKIEN | COMPLETE CATALOGUE 1989/90 [Cover title]. Catalogue/stocklist. Unwin Hyman, n.d. [c. September 1989]. Hb Silm. price £11.95.

 

£13.99 | LABEL | UNWIN HYMAN

 

Variant 1399.1

 

VARIANT 1399.1: Price sticker, front flap (printed price clipped). Publisher (full), £13.99, white. No variation seen. [Shown on dustjacket of Clowes Second Impression variant (S.057)].

 

NOTE: Last likely UH re-pricing. Must post-date September 1989 UH catalogue (see above); early 1990 most likely. Cannot have been in use much later than HARPERCOLLINS July 1990 take-over.

 

£14.99 | PRINTED | HARPERCOLLINS

 

HarperCollins printed price

Printed price, front flap. No variation seen. [Shown on dustjacket of Clowes Second Impression variant (S.031)].

 

NOTE: HARPERCOLLINS sell remaining stock of GA&U second impressions in new trimmed down John Howe dustjackets¹; variant commonly referred to as ‘hybrid’ or ‘converted’ edition². Official HARPERCOLLINS edition (1992) sold in same £14.99 priced Howe jacket, untrimmed; advertised in early HARPERCOLLINS Tolkien catalogue (presumed to be from late 1990) as forthcoming in January 1992³.

 

1. Hammond & Anderson (A15a) p. 220.

2. Holford/TOLKIENBOOKS ref. 62160.

3. [TOLKIEN] | COMPLETE CATALOGUE 1990-1991 | YOU'LL BELIEVE IN MAGIC! [Cover title]. Catalogue/stocklist. HarperCollins, n.d. [c. late 1990]. Hb Silm. price £14.99.

__

 

That both Clowes Second Impression and University Press Fourth Impression copies are noted with the earliest examples of dustjacket re-pricing, suggests stock of both impressions were still held by GA&U in the early 1980s. The absence of any other re-priced impressions suggests that stock of all other impressions was likely exhausted when re-pricing first occurred. However, if, for example, a re-priced fifth impression were to surface, this wouldn't be surprising.

 

For context, prior to re-pricing (c. 1980), GA&U evidently had undistributed stock of The Silmarillion from their 1977 print run(s). This stock was, I believe, a mix of impressions. To illustrate this, we can look at evidence from 1978, around a year post-publication. In 2010, Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull (posting as ‘Findegil’ here) commented on possible explanations to why various later impressions of The Silmarillion may or may not have been included in the five-volume boxset The Tolkien Library (1978). Their copy of the boxset—a ‘publisher's file’ copy—included a second impression of The Silmarillion (1977). Most sets seem to have been issued with fourth or fifth impressions; cf. TOLKIENBOOKS.NET 87160. From this, I think it can reasonably be inferred that stock of The Silmarillion then held (c. 1978) was an indiscriminate mix of impressions; GA&U simply used the stock they had ‘to hand’.

It cannot be assumed, however, that stock of a particular impression of The Silmarillion—if this had been evident—had been exhausted in 1978 based only on its presence or absence in this boxset. Scull & Hammond suggest stock may have been physically elsewhere, possibly even ‘unnoticed in some warehouse until recovered long afterward by HarperCollins’; an obvious nod (I think)—quoted slightly out of context here (and not necessarily Scull & Hammond's fixed explanation)—to the already discussed Howe jacketed GA&U second impressions that HARPERCOLLINS distributed/sold in c. 1992. See also Descriptive Bibliography (p. 220) and TOLKIENBOOKS.NET 62160.

HARPERCOLLINS may well have discovered more stock in the early 1990s (as Scull & Hammond suggest), but the evidence here presented makes it clear that second impressions—and fourths (early in the decade)—were on hand throughout the 1980s. I also touched upon this in Bibliographical Terminology: Excerpt from an Imagined Catalogue, where I stated:  

 

Until the HARPERCOLLINS years, there does not seem to have been any further hardback copies of The Silmarillion even printed. GA&U (and later UNWIN HYMAN) appear to have distributed (mainly second impression) copies from existing stock; they did this from 1977, throughout the eighties, and into the early nineties. Only in 1992 was stock of hardback copies, printed in 1977, finally exhausted (assuming further copies weren't merely pulped). HARPERCOLLINS still had bound GA&U second impression copies to hand; these they distributed in John Howe dustjackets along with their own newly printed edition.  

 

More succinctly: understanding what hardback stock of The Silmarillion GA&U held in the late 1970s and early 1980s—or simply the fact that they held un-sold stock—helps explain the circumstances that led to dustjacket re-pricing taking place in the first place.

 

Variant 595.1

 

Returning to the labels, it is interesting to note that the most professional looking £5.95 label—the only early label that appears to be decently printed (and not the product of a simple retail ‘price gun’ machine)—has only been observed on University Press Fourth Impression copies (VARIANT 595.1). This may well have been the first label used to re-price The Silmarillion. I have also noted this style of price label on other GA&U books from before 1977, for example on The Hobbit.

The price increase between the first (£5.95) and second (£8.95) noted re-pricing—and I guess between £8.95 and £11.95 too—is fairly large (around 50%); perhaps this is suggestive of a missing price change. The use of catalogue and stocklist referencing is mostly fortuitous; I have been unable to locate any catalogue examples from between 1983–1988. More mid-80s evidence would certainly be useful. The use of blue labels is also a puzzle, in respect to both timing and purpose. The supply of unpriced books to the trade, at this time, would have been poor practise. It could be suggested these copies were destined for book club markets; BOOK CLUB ASSOCIATES (BCA) had their own early re-badged edition (1978) and were soon producing their own hardback editions, but it is possible blue label copies were for use by other smaller book club organisations. I have, however, no evidence for this.

 

The gap between the official July 1990 HARPERCOLLINS take-over and their advertised January 1992 ‘Centenary Edition’ of The Silmarillion is not insignificant. What hardback stock was being distributed/sold by HARPERCOLLINS between these dates? In 1991, HARPERCOLLINS issued a paperback edition under their GRAFTONBOOKS imprint; printed in Australia (by GRIFFEN PRESS) with the Howe centenary cover design (rather than Roger Garland cover). Cf. TOLKIENBOOKS.NET 62240. Is it possible that Howe dustjackets were also printed at this time and distributed by HARPERCOLLINS—using the remaining GA&U second impression stock (i.e. converted/hybrid copies)—prior to their own 1992 printed ‘Centenary Edition’ edition? Perhaps.

Finally, I suggest the following tentative date ranges for the various prices discussed above:

 

£4.95 GA&U (September 1977–August 1980)

£5.95 GA&U (August 1980–1982)

£8.95 GA&U (1983–July 1986)

£11.95 UH (July 1986–1989)

£13.99 UH (1990–July 1990)  

£14.99 HC (January 1992–April 1994)

 

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I would like to thank the fellow collector who kindly supplied high resolution images of many of the publishers' catalogues here referenced.